Diary of a CEO

i am sure that my parent was stay at ParkSpring Spa Hotle arranged by my wife, althrough she didn't say anything, but I can fell that this is a father's day gift / surprise for them under the name of me -- their son; now. I have to explained a little bit about my family, we are living in the same roof for 3 generation, this is a used traditional Chinese family, the elder or only son shall live with their parent and taking care of their diay life; every consideration is concerned about the father and son relationship. but to live under same roof wasn't a easy job. especially when you got married ( which means someone originally outside your family with no blood-related relationship is joint the family ), your wife will take most of the responsibilty taking care of the entire family, especially the elder. so. the conflict created, the son stand in between need to fix all the " family issues " in proper matter, no bias to parent, and no favor to wife, what a job... I can't tell too much about family business, the only thing I want to reveal is that my wife never have any argument with my parent, this is a virtue that seldom can keep.

posted by Roger @ 8/09/2003 01:01:00 下午

Aug. 6 2003/8/6
Strolling along New bridge area,, this is my first trip after SARS, I arrived last night and had a Laman ( Noodle ) dinner with my colleague, he brought me to the so call “ his no. 1 lamen shop “ near Shinjuku, we had soy source noodle , the air condition wasn’t function well, so we sweat all over when finish the noodle shop; on the way, he told me some corporate gossip which I hardly heard about , as a local run an Japanese firm is rare to see, not to mention I didn’t speak any Japanese ( I believe the guy who run Nissan didn’t speak Japanese as well ), it’s funny to know that a lot of rumors going on and the business we are taking is in enormous change, but anyhow, work on my own is my principal, it doesn’t matter who’s behind you, if you are strong and robust, you can produce revenue, it’s not so hard to find foster parent once someone want to abandon you.
This morning, I woke and go for the Japanese beef rice bowl breakfast, then take the “ Mountain Hand line “ to new bridge where I wish to see new 3 C product, when getting the train, everyone is standing, it’s 9:30 in the morning, then I check the bench side and read a few line mentions : the bench will operate in normal function after 10:00 am, a very good way to handle big traffic hour as most of Tokyo staff are communicator and take train to the office. The other interesting thing I found it that during the trip, the train chief or administrator keep announcing that talking over the mobile phone is not allowed in the train, then I see lots of people play with their I-mood, the restriction give an great edge to date transmission, calculate how many people transport on the train, and they are not permit to use basic phone feature – voice, so NTT went for data business and capture the opportunity to grow and to provide tone of value added service, so, who helps who. This is an interesting finding.

Buying staff at the train station is convince to almost everyone, so the train station is like a market, big stations do provide CVS , in addition, restaurant is convenience to see in the station, you can spend whole day in one big station if you really want to kill time. This can be learn from lot of country.

On my last trip, what impressed me is the top 10 store, the chain location in big stations and provide top 10 good cross catalogue, such as top 10 cosmetics. Managine, Music, accessory, house supply. Drinks, etc. as they update the ranking goods every weeks, so they must equip with powerful logistic system and operation strength, as most of the good price less then 500 Japanese yen, so the turn over rate is high, the traffic is high and the margin shall be high, this is another type of convenience store, it save your time to check special stores , and provide you a one-stop shopping for everything on the top 10 list, it’s like fashion location and fashion business, but the turn over rate is so high that may create a entry barrier for potential competitor, and it my cannibalize stores like music and book shops. I think this model can work in Taiwan, if there’s any 3rd party want to compete with 7-11.

I didn’t buy anything from the 3C shop and may not do so this time, if time allowed, I may want to check Autumn leave Platte – where all the new gadget demos.

2003/8/7
I was thrilled and touched by Itoh-san’s hospitality and warmth who extended our friendship to the people I introduced the first time, this is the true friendship I can hardly described. It not only proved that there’s indeed good friend but to demonstrate that friendship can be established cross-boarder and cross races. I think all my Japanese colleague who were there witness the whole thing will agree with me and proud of my way of making good friend.
The studio tour gave Leslie a good surprise, it not only show him the best “ Sound “ in the world, but to experience the music industry behind the scene, to discover talent and their life is not difficult, but to open to door for music production is quite a task, the studio tour is a very good lesson to music consumer and for people to better appreciate music and musicians, we walk through recording rooms, mixing rooms, mastering room and DVD audio / visual integration rooms, the Japanese executive were all surprise to see how the music business constructed such a work and equipment.
The tour will also make Leslie comfortable as this may be the break up board meeting for two party, people developed friendship via working relationship. My boss in very in fond of him, this intimacy makes the break up even harder, but the message must delivered after the board meeting, if there’s no reason for Joint Venture, then why not simply keep the personal relationship ? or if the personal relationship is based on the business, then the mask much take off as well, we can not cheating each other , we need to face it in front of the reality mirror, breaking up is hard to do, but pretending partner is even harder.
Board dinner wasn’t arrange well, Tokyo pick up one gorgeous restaurant which we can enjoy the night scenery of Tokyo, a indoor – outdoor connected space makes the restaurant a very romantic place, the assumption is : when people design the place for ambience, they ( including customer ) don’t really care about the food, the weird thing is when you pick up a restaurant with excellent atmosphere, you enjoy talking then eating, so, pick up great restaurant will reduce the motivation for communication, so, we see couples young and old sitting and talking, but hardly eating, this Italian restaurant is detailed in creating mood, but not providing food, so I think none of us appreciate the food tonight, but we , as the rest of the restaurant guests, do a lot of talking , so, this is quiet an interesting theory : if you hate to communicate with someone in obligation, find a good restaurant, if you willing to talk, find a good place , not good food; mental fulfillment is sometimes more important then physical fulfillment. Like what I impressed about My COO’s quit smoking, the reason is “ smoking managed my schedule and my life , so get rid of it, I will be more free, if I need to smoke before meeting or event, then, I am controlled by the cigarette, if every joint take me 5 minutes, I smoke a pack a day, then I am wasting 100 minutes per day, what a waste of life “, this angle provide a very good insight for quit smoking, free from smoke is free from controlling by other object “
Board meeting went well, as most of the director aware of the material I am preparing to present except Leslie, so, it’s a easy one except you need to organized it in English and pulling some humor to the meeting, before the meeting, I try to log in the web mail via the IBM PC, the password been reject all the time and I can’t access to my mail, I don’t know why and nobody in the Japan office can fix it, it’s like this PC hates me. Anyway, the new one shall be arrived next Monday, I will be alive again.
I make an appointment with Itoh-san tomorrow for lunch, as he is so familiar with the new head in charge of East Asia, I need his advise to carry over my mission and be a valuable asset to the new head, sometime you need good friend in Japan to tell you the Japanese way of dealing with management issue and business ethic. I need his advise urgently and expect to grand my very thanks to him, again, he is like my elder brother accompany with me for the last decade, I do hope the friendship can be tight and tight, we can helping each other more and more, a friend in need is a friend indeed, today, I prove the old saying is a good example. It’s late; I am ready to relax now.
2003/8/7
little roger failed it again, I am not saying all the young talent pursue the American way of getting a good perk or to negotiate a better salary / package before contribute. In the Japanese firm, you must give before take, when the opportunity was granted, offer is not a primary goal to discuss, otherwise, you lost the chance to follow a good mentor and seeds the uncomfortable feeling between you and the future employer, it won’t help you learn or grow in the organization, especially when you consider to work in the Japanese company.

This is the second time little roger have the change to work with executive in our company, by the negotiation for the first time failed due to a disagreement on the salary base, this time, he volunteer ask for a new beginning and pass through interviews with executive, unfortunately, when handle the perks, he miss the focus and forget that this is a Japanese firm and he is a new kid on the block, no effort was made, no contribution was done, again, the uncomfortable feeling grows in the heart of COO, the problem is, the tree of uncomfortable is now growing taller, this will echo to a “ no “ about little Roger’s future plan in our company, I did advise him to conduct this process with care and with sincerely , and I though he is now mature enough to handle it. At least, he is no more a new comer in the job market, and have obtaining interpersonal skill by working at another multi-national enterprise.

I am not going to teach young talent how to deal the career, but to look around the job market and the economic environment, everyone shall be aware that any opportunity for working in an multi-national company is rare change, and should lower the expectation for personal interest unless you do equip with something , skill, no man can do; mentality and paradigm is another variable when senior executive encounter with your ambition, they won’t treat the aggressively negotiating perk is a smart way to get the job, the interpretation will be this is a arrogant young man who deserve nothing but ask for everything; this is definitely not so call the spirit of “ Entrepreneurship “, humble and decent attitude will give young man more room to grow, even the mission is tough, even the pay wasn’t rosy enough, but the experience and knowledge will be your asset to carry, will be your weapons to climb the corporate ladder or access to next level of career development, I am not trying to teach anyone, I am a tough negotiator and sometime proud of standing on a solid ground and asking for more, the experience told me, in the fast growing industry, you should ask for in advance as you may soon lost the leverage, in a development industry, you should ask in an installation method, as they are investing ( losing money ), both party will count, you may get the upfront and being skimming or pay on an installation concept and extend you career in the company.
I feel sorry about little roger as I pay a high hope for his possible join our team and contribute to the growth of the company, I will not exercise on it and yes, keep friendship with this young guy and see who’s wrong in the end, but never preaching.
William may in the same situation, Adam called and sending the message of spread it out – William need a new job, another young man seeking for executive position in a tough market in declining industry – music. He wrote William a letter entails the “ career advise “, it’s not wrong for shopping new job with relationship you built, but, as COO mention, a very good CPU, hardware but the operation system and software wasn’t function well, it cause the overall performance disappointing, I am in line with this metaphor, as I work directly with him this time and found some of the bad habit developed maybe contribute from the entertainment environment, such as “ wait and see what happen, “ “ Don’t be the first to act “ “ Sneaking instead of Volunteering “” Iceberg dialogue “, for a young man, this is a reverse sophistication and won’t gain credit when conducting business internally or externally; COO will grand him the career advise but not to grand him the career, smart get the good impression, but smart won’t lead you to the result, action, attitude, attribution maybe more important then smart.

Itoh-san got his own label – 88, a prestigious jazz label run and initiative by him, this is quiet an honor status for a person in the music industry, the recognition prove that he is a man of respect and garner the reputation to solicited the best Jazz musician contribute their talent to the young label; I am so happy to see this development, when I learn that the label launched 2 an half years ago with more than 20 albums release under the 88 label ( brand name ), I was astonished, not even heard that some of the record won great response in both quality and sales,
Itoh-san let us check the Jazz album chart from the billboard, 4 of his label album is on the top 20 album chart and no, 1 album foe consecutive 2 weeks is his master piece, I almost speechless, his really achieve something only a few person can achieve in his or her life.
As the music doesn’t sell in Taiwan, I love to find a way to promote and sell it via our channel, and to design a better scope for the label , for the man I respect, for the friend I cherished and for the music I love.
I also consider to launch my own label with Corbett entitled “ Why not “, it’s an experimental approach to open arm for any new form of music, music shall be and will be appreciate by people in different sensing zone, when the idea of “ Why not “ come out, we – Corbett and I were thinking to optimize our music know how , credit maybe, and reputation to attract new artist / talent to work with us, with the full service arm, we may able to help them complete the entire business cycle without paying huge money to big label or sacrifice their artistic integrity compromising with the so called “ mainstream “, as music today and music fan toady are more and more diversity, to provide a dynamic way of music pipe line shall be an interesting direction, it may incubate within our entity or seed somewhere in the music value chain, but “ Why not “ shall be one of my life goal as well, no matter Corbett in the picture or not, so go ahead, why not?

Having lunch with Itoh-san was always a great pleasure, he will bring me to all the best, maybe not the famous restaurant and enjoy great cuisine, today, we had sushi lunch at a small sushi bar, the raw fish is fresh and delicious, he told me the one we visit often have been rated the no. 1 sushi restaurant in Tokyo by Zigzag food guide with a point of 27, I am worried that since the rating been published, it will be crowed and we may not able to relax enjoy our dinner, but itoh-san said don’t worry as the owner of the sushi restaurant only entertain familiar customer, if they ( run by 2 brothers ) saw stranger knocking the door, the response will be “ it’s full “ or “ booked “, we may still be the VIP there, it’s a pity that I could not bring Inayoshi-san and COO there next week due to the Japanese long weekend, and the restaurant will be closed for 4 days, but we managed to reserve the other one – Chef’s, the Chinese restaurant in Tokyo with great taste and great food, owned by Shanghai emigrate and keep a very delicacy detail of Shanghai cuisine, Itoh-san book the restaurant for me and have me bring back the map as well, in additional to the great campaign, great food and good conversation, my souvenir for music CD is as many as what he give to Leslie, so … the bounce is getting to know that Itoh-san is a good friend of Kodera-san, they been keep the friendship for 15 years since the “ Voice of Asia “ campaign, a business relationship carry on for more than 15 years is definitely become friendship, he told me how Kodera-san treated people and advise me to behavior nature and he will grant any help if I really in trouble, this is a gift from the heaven, for a long way, we cross because of mutual trust and friendship. And Itoh-san even told me how to arrange time with him after work, so this is a good advise from a good friend who teach me how to survive in the newly designed organization and to walk through a very complicate Japanese communication model.
East Asia operation review will take place in one hour, we may only have 20 minutes to express what we achieve for the past 6 months and our strategic plan for the next quarter, a get together party will be followed then, it’s my headache again to memories all the Japanese name, it’s easy for me to read in Chinese, but it’s hard for me to pronounce it . I should spend sometime with my HK counter partner as well, it seems he is suffering from a great pressure and don’t know how to handle it, as a friend, I will tell him what to do, if what I am doing suit his need.

posted by Roger @ 8/09/2003 12:48:00 下午

Last night, I went home at 9:30 pm, I missed the Chinese Valentine's evening with my wife, I was so tired, when fininshed my later supper, I fall asleep on the coach in the living room. I don't know how it goes, I suppose to revise my board meeting document and finish it before get on the plan following morning, I was too tired to do anything, I woke at aroud 11:30 and change room to continue sleeping, during the sleeping, I wase chalked and woke a couple times, my stomach wasn't feel comfortalbe. too late for dinner and eating too much studed peanuts, my wife is the greatest chief in the world, whenever I got change to eat at home, I will overeating until my stomact said no.

So, I trun on the alarm clock to wake me up at 5 in the morning, spending 2 and half hours on the top study room, I managed to finished my presentation, havn't got a chance to really disguise what's on the paper and how to make the whole presentation a convincing one. but I got time to rehearse on the way to Tokyo.

This is my first flight after SARS, it's about 6 months long, maybe the longest break for me to take overseas trip for like last 10 years, I travelling heaving duing the entertainment days, half of my scheulde is flying, I flew all over the world and this is the previliege of woking in entertainmetn sector -- envision and enhance your view to the world.

posted by Roger @ 8/05/2003 10:46:00 上午

Saturday morning, I woke up late due to a midnight movie with my wife in the prior evening, we went to " Bad Boy 2 ", with high expectation and feel disappointed; the action design wasn't bad, but the story and the line in the movie is so bad; I hardly can stand the drag and meaningless line when Will Smith talking to Martin Lawrence, it's a pity to see a sequel lower it's standard or lower it's standard of target audience.

I went to the Computer Application Show by 9:45, this is the biggest computer show after SARS, we did have a big exhibition vendor there for customer acquisition and for branding purpose, PC show in Taiwan is like a direct selling market, visitors anticipate a lower than market price , and they did, especially in the last show day, a lot of vendor will declare a house keeping policy like " everything must go " or " sell as the demo price ", it's very crowded, so . thieves, hustlers will all gather for this festival; I stay there for about 2 hours and heading for another lunch appointment with Henry, a genius I called long time a go, a true entrepreneur who establish his pilot business by selling PC in German, a Taiwanese relocate to Berlin and doing business there for 10 years. we know each other due to the transaction in the military, I was his successor for the title " Officer of Monumer ", when he return from German, he contact with me and I have a chance to see how he start his business one by one, from target decor airplane to arcade game, to business initiatives in China and currently he fall into the cosmetic field and using Natotech extracting Chinese Medicine and making it the original Chinese skin care and beauty product. he failed in Taiwan and China for many new initiatives , but trying new things is the charter born with him, I catch up with him once in a while and see his new development, the conversation we did last weekend , what he said about " identical Chinese business " impressed me, he took other country's good at and make comparison to Chinese, it seems we lack of any significant industry to stand out among all the developing countries. he said when asked about what he want to do the most to distinguish China, he said in the china business, a smart response , but a good way to start with, Inspired by this idea, I was thinking what do be last for long and be identified as the " Chinese Industry ", it shall be related to what we keep for a long time, with uniqueness and can't be produced by foreign countries : they might be " Modernization of Chinese Medicine" " Culture and tourist business " , well I need to put more heart on this subject.

I keep the exercise hobby for 4 months, so, in the Sat. afternoon, the 3 men Ping Pong take place as usual, Sam, Osking and me, 3 person with the same level of competition make the exercise even harder, you have to be concentrate and pulling yourself together in the entire game, we were all exhausted and the game stop earlier then before, we finished the game before 5 pm and went for Coffee, during the coffee break, I learned that Osking is studying Chinese fortunate telling technique before and very good at telling someone's fortune by break-up your Chinese name, it's fun to listen to him, he use some communication skill, his knowledge of Chinese character and observation of human nature, mapping the road map of someone, very interesting.

Sunday is a good family day, today I took a early train and bringing Sound, Fruit with me to the dream beach -- Fulong again, left my wife at home to enjoy single life which she almost forget 10 more years ago, we arrived at the beach by 8:30, thanks to the Typhoon in southern Taiwan, the wave is strong and high, kids are so exciting in surfing and playing with the wave, I play the best father of the day on Sunday, evening was for me and my wife , today is prior to Chinese St. Valentine’s Day - July 7th on the lunar Year, we went for a bad dinner, well, it do keep the memory fresh.

This week will be a busy week for re-budget meeting, I will take a business trip to Tokyo to arrange board meeting, attending operation review meeting etc. see you all probably in a week if I don't get a chance to hook up on line.

posted by Roger @ 8/04/2003 07:52:00 上午